Martyr of Charity

St. Maximilian Kolbe

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Whoever does not love remains in death. That's a weighty sentence at 8am on a Monday. But the truth is not limited by clock or calendar. The truth sets us free. And the truth is: if I do not love, I am dead. I may be up and waddling around; talking, doing my laundry, saying Mass, but I am w/o Life. Outside the Way. Knowing that love frees, that love saves, I have a choice: love or don't. If I receive the gift of Divine Love and choose to love in turn, then I live and walk the Way. If, however, I receive the gift of Divine Love and choose not to love, then I live a waking death. A life w/o God. A choice He will honor even after soul and body separate. John tells us that we come to know love b/c Love Himself laid down his life for us. He showed us how to love sacrificially by dying on the Cross for the salvation of the world. If we will love and follow him, that's our path. Like I said, weighty stuff for a Monday at 8am. But not as weighty as the sacrifice we celebrate this morning. We all know the martyr's story of Friar Maximilian Kolbe. He volunteered to take the place of a prisoner in Auschwitz who'd been sentenced to starve to death. With nine others, Kolbe was interred in an underground bunker. After two weeks with no water or food, the Nazis injected the four surviving prisoners with carbolic acid, including Kolbe. JPII canonized him in 1982, declaring him a “martyr of charity.” As horrific as his death was, it was a sacrifice of love. The man he saved was a husband and father. That man survived the Holocaust and attended Kolbe's canonization. As a martyr of charity, Kolbe bears witness to what it is to walk the Way of Christ, to live for the truth in love. There is almost no chance at all that anyone here this morning will be called upon to bear witness to the faith in a similar manner. But Kolbe's sacrifice shows us the limitless edge of sacrificial love. Whatever we do in love today will not match the historical drama of Kolbe's sacrifice. It will pale in comparison. Fortunately, we are called upon to compete with the martyrs. We are called upon to bear witness where and when we are in a way that gives God glory and demonstrates to the world that loving is living a life in Christ. Whoever does not love remains in death. That's our testimony. Love, therefore, not in word or speech but in deed and truth.

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Where's the doubt?

19th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Peter is having a hard week. Our Lord has called him “Satan” and described him as an obstacle. Then there's the whole failed exorcism episode where the disciples' faith is too weak to drive out a demon. Today, Peter nearly falls into the sea b/c his faith is too small. Pulling him back from the drink, Jesus asks Peter, “Why did you doubt?” Peter doesn't answer, so we're left with the accusing question. Is it fair to accuse him of being a doubter? Keep in mind: it's Peter who, seeing Jesus walking on the sea, yells out, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Yes, there's some doubt in there – “if it is you” – but it still takes some pretty solid faith and courage to test Jesus' power with one's own life. Peter had no way of knowing whether or not the “ghost” he was seeing was really the Lord. Of course, the accusation of doubt against Peter comes only after he's on the water and the sea becomes rough. Fearing for his life, Peter yells out, “Lord, save me!” Where's the doubt? Even knowing that he is looking at the Lord, Peter thinks that he has to ask Jesus to save him. As if Jesus had not already done so.

Digging deeper into Peter's doubt, we can ask: what is Peter doubting? If we take doubt to mean something like “a failure to trust” or “a hesitancy to believe,” then there has to be someone we are failing to trust or believe. Our gospel scene strongly suggests that Peter's near demise in the rough sea is caused by his lack of trust in Jesus; he hesitates for just a second to believe in Jesus' love for him. Is this the failure that nearly kills him? If so, then why does he immediately cry out, “Lord, save me!” Why cry out for help to the very person whose power you are doubting? In other words, if Peter is doubting Jesus, why turn to him for rescue? Yelling out for Christ's help when in peril seems to be an exemplary expression of faith in Christ. So, again, who is Peter doubting? Consider this: Jesus has called Peter “Satan;” described him as an obstacle; and rebuked him for his small faith. Despite all of these indications that the Lord is somehow displeased with Peter, Jesus establishes his Church on Peter and gives him the keys to the kingdom. Is it possible that Peter is experiencing just a little confusion about who he himself is? Maybe Peter – in a moment of panic – fails to trust in the faith he has been given. Peter doubts his own strength in Christ.

Think about your own relationship with God. There have been times when you doubted. Doubt creeps in a like a noxious fog no matter how tight you think you are with God. Think about that doubt and ask: was I really thinking that Love Himself stopped loving me personally? Or was I really worried about the strength of my own love for Him? See, God is Love, so His love for us is a universal given. He loves us b/c Love is Who He is. And though we are made to love Him, we are also made with a built-in free will that is subject to sin. When doubt wiggles its way into our relationship with God, more often than not we can trace that doubt back to a lack of confidence in our own “small faith,” back to our own anxiety about whether or not we are truly in love with God. When the sea gets rough and Peter panics, he does what any one of us here would do: he calls on Jesus for help! That call, that cry for rescue isn't a sign that Peter doubts Christ's power to rescue him; it's a sign that he needs a stronger sense of himself as a man already rescued. How strong is your sense of yourself as a man or woman already rescued by the power of Christ?

God knows we are limited creatures. Prone to making mistakes and even intentionally doing evil things. Part of being limited is needing to be reminded over and over again that we are loved by Love Himself. We forget that w/o His love we cannot exist. Literally, God's love is what holds us in being. At those moments when we forget that His love holds us in being, we also tend to forget that we experience His love for us as caring attention. He supplies all that we need. That we think we need all sort of things that we don't really need and never receive is not His problem. Strip away greedy wanting and all need is exactly what God provides – His love. So, when we forget that He loves us, when we forget that we live, move, and have our being in His love, our confidence fails and doubt runs wild and free. Left unchecked, doubt will play and play and play until a moment's lapse in faith becomes a lifetime of anxiety and despair. Doubts needs a soul that forgets that it is loved, rescued, and freed from sin and death.

Do you know that you have already been rescued from the storm of sin and death? Do you know that whatever disaster strikes, whatever fear grips you in a moment, that God loves you and will provide for you? He might not provide what you think you need or want, but He will provide all that you need to return His love. If your confidence fails, do what Peter did and cry out: “Lord, save me!” That's enough to remind you that you are already saved in Christ. It's just enough to strengthen your heart, to slay the doubt, and return you to knowing again the love that God always gives. Remember what Elijah discovers about the Lord – He's not in the tornado, the earthquake, or the fire. He's in the small, still voice, a voice that forever whispers, “Take courage, it is I; I am with you always.” 

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St. Dominic: there's no looking back!

St. Dominic

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

There's no looking back. Let the dead bury the dead. If you will put your hand to the plow, and keep your hand on the plow 'til the job's done – there's no looking back. Once Jesus says to you, “Follow me,” and you say, “I will follow you,” the only way forward is forward. Whether the soil is sand, rock, or rich black loam – the only way forward is behind Christ, following along; doing what he does; speaking his words; teaching, preaching, healing, feeding, freeing; and being taught, being preached to; being healed, fed, and freed. Paul confesses to the Corinthians that he doesn't preach to them with sublime words or out of sublime wisdom. His preaching is “a demonstration of spirit and power.” He doesn't preach from merely human strength or courage. Nor with a self-assured ease. But from “weakness and fear and much trembling.” Paul's not fearful of how the world will react to the Gospel, or what the world will do to him for preaching it. He's fearful knowing that the Lord will use his trembling weakness to do great things for the Kingdom. So, he is “resolved to know nothing...except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Knowing this – and just this – there is no looking back.

But what is it for a preacher to look back? The temptation to look back could arise from a disordered sense of nostalgia. My life was better back then. . .before Christ, before I said Yes. Looking back could be prompted by intellectual pride. Preaching isn't real intellectual work. It's just exhortation for the crowd. Rabble-rousing for Jesus. Looking back could be about emotional and physical comfort, or a need to be the center of attention, or an inordinate passion for good rhetoric and literary style. The preacher can be tempted to pull Christ off the Cross and take his place. Or to turn the Gospel into a vehicle for his eccentric theology and personal agenda. When the field to be plowed seems to grow and grow and the ground gets rockier and rockier, the preacher will be tempted to loosen the yoke a bit and just glide softly over the topsoil. Better not uproot the bigger stones. That just makes more work for later. Leave them be. Let them be stones for someone else. Probably the strongest temptation to look back comes when the only answers available are Yes and No. Do or do not. Choose life or choose death. The wisdom of the world loves its ambiguity, its waffling and compromise. The preacher puts his hand to the plow. The only way forward is forward, following Christ.

The great Dominican preachers of the Church – Humbert, Jordan, Albert and Thomas, Eckhart, Catherine, Martin, Lacordaire, of course, Dominic himself – did not look back to “a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away.” Why? B/c that sort of wisdom is merely created. It's the lived experience of creatures. Temporary creatures. Limited and passing away. They preached God's wisdom. Revealed in the flesh and blood of Christ Jesus. The lived experience of the Incarnate Son. And him crucified. Their assigned ground had its share of stones. They tightened the yoke, dug deep, and never looked back. Christ sustained them in their Yes. He plowed in front of and beside them. So long as they gave their voices to his Word, he was with them. And when they didn't, he lent them his own. If you will be a preacher of the Gospel, practice now never looking back. There's nothing there to make the work lighter, to make the ground softer. Ahead is truth and love. Plow on. Prepare the field. And let the dead bury the dead.

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Apologies!

Apologies! 

I haven't posted in a while. With the end of the semester, priory duties, home visit, etc. . .it's been crazier than usual. 

I am giving the Pre-novitiate Vestition Retreat this week and next weekend is Simple Profession and then Vestition. 

Things get to be "normal" around Aug 7th. 

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Worry is how we worship Self

Ss. Martha, Mary, & Lazarus

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

Holy Family of Nazareth Center

The Enemy wants you worried. He wants you anxious. Why? If he can convince you that your worrying actually changes things in the real world, then he can keep you focused on trying to be God. While you're trying to be God – changing the world with your magical worry – you will fail to recognize that you have become your own idol. Worry, spiritual anxiety is the liturgy we use to worship Self. Martha is fretting about Mary while Mary is contemplating Christ. Martha is expending time and energy trying to control Mary, trying to will her into helping her with the chores. Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better part. Now, we could conclude from this that sitting in silent contemplation of the Lord is objectively better than being up and about doing stuff for the household. But notice that the issue here is not contemplation vs. action. The issue here is Martha's anxiety. Could Martha serenely contemplate the Lord while serving? Could Mary be in the throes of worry while sitting quietly next to Jesus? Yes to both. But the Enemy has convinced Martha that whining to the Lord is a good way to control Mary. And controlling Mary is a good way for Martha to worship herself. In the real world, Martha isn't serving the Lord; she's serving herself, her true god. That she is “worried and anxious about many things” is evidence of her idolatry. Now, before you conclude that Martha is some sort of horrible person – keep in mind – Martha loves Jesus. She has acknowledged him as her Lord. And she believes that bustling around fetching him tea and biscuits is evidence of her devotion. Notice what's missing. She is focused on service as service. She is focused on doing for the sake of doing. She has forgotten why she serves. Could Martha serenely contemplate the Lord while serving? Of course she could. Why doesn't she? Because she sees her service as an end in itself. The point of service – for her – is to serve. She has forgotten that loving the Lord is the point, loving Christ and giving him the glory is the goal. When Jesus tells her that Mary has chosen the “better part,” he is not telling her that active service is inferior to contemplation. He's telling her that being at peace in his love is better than worshiping the Self with worry. If anxiety is an idol for you, remember the end for which you were created and be at peace.

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Do not fear; bear witness

12^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Fear has its uses. Fear of my daddy's belt kept me and my little brother from killing each other on many occasions. Fear might've kept you from doing something stupid like driving drunk or experimenting with illegal drugs. Maybe you remained chaste until marriage b/c the possibility of having a child w/o a spouse scared you senseless. Whatever terrible thing fear prevented you from doing, it probably saved you a lot of trouble, maybe saved your life. Being cautious, being careful is just good sense. But this is not the kind of fear Jesus is warning us about this morning. The fear Jesus is warning us against is the kind of fear that kills the soul, the kind that prevents us doing or saying what we know to be the right thing to do or say. This kind of fear is deeply rooted in cowardice, the failure of courage to risk everything in bearing witness to the truth of the Gospel. If, by witnessing to Christ, you fear losing a job or a friendship or even your life, then consider Jesus' warning: “...do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”

We call that kind of fear. . .awe. Reverence. Wonder. Veneration. It's the kind of fear that Job experiences at the end. The kind that strikes us at the root of our being and reminds us that we are dust. Loved dust, yes. Dust given life again in Christ, yes. But still dust. And nothing we have and nothing we are adds even a quanta of dignity beyond what God Himself has already given us. So, when Jesus warns us not to fear those who can destroy the body but not the soul, he's warning us to put our supernatural goal above and beyond whatever we might want to hang onto down here. Whatever it might be that we think is going to heal us, make us happy, free us from death, it ain't. Anything created will die. Medicine, money, career, even family and friends – all created, all temporary, all headed toward death. It is best to make sure that a fear of losing what's always passing away doesn't prevent you from grabbing hold of him who cannot pass away. It is best then to attach yourself to that which is uncreated and permanent. When the time comes – and it will – do not deny Christ the faithful witness he is due. “Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.” That's his promise to us. He follows this promise with another: “But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”

How do we acknowledge Christ before others? There are obvious, visible ways to witness. Wearing a cross. Praying before meals in public. Bumper stickers. Carrying a rosary and praying it. These are common and easy. Not much chance anyone is going to call you out for this kind of witness. . .esp., in TX. You can ratchet up the danger a bit by talking to co-workers about your faith. Maybe throw in a bit of witness if you teach at a public school. Privately challenge a family member's persistent and public sin. If you really want to feel the full weight of the world's opposition to the Gospel, then you have to go Big. Run for an elected office and bring the Light to gov't corruption. Get a seat on the school board and challenge the theology of Woke Religion. Threaten the Unholy Sacraments of the elites – abortion, gender ideology, and sex w/o consequences. Now you've got the world's attention! When the pressure to buckle starts to bear down on you, what do you do? “Fear no one...do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”

Now, I've been assuming here that you're looking for trouble. Actively seeking out chances to bear witness. And that's a good thing. But what happens when you're just living your Christian life, the world finds you, and demands your surrender? Whatever you do, do not play the Enemy's games. He wants you angry, self-righteous, set on a worldly victory. He wants you puffed up with indignation and fury, ready to lash out, seeking revenge for the insult. Do this and you have denied Christ. Like a cornered and wounded animal, you've attacked as you were attacked and the witness you bear denies the Father's providence. He won't take care of me, so I have to it myself. How can He take care of you if you refuse to receive His care? Do not play the Enemy's game! Meet opposition with truth in love. Bear witness to the truth and do so for no other reason than love. Truth is not a weapon to achieve victory. It's not a tool for burying your enemies. Truth is a person, Christ Jesus. He is the Way and the Life. Show the opposition Christ. Don't just tell them true things. Be the Truth for them. Demonstrate the mercy you yourself have received. Show them the Way. Walk it with them or for them. Whatever you think you have to lose, God will provide. 

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Stealing credit from God

11^th Week OT (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Just a few days ago, Jesus said to the disciples, “...your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds...” This morning he says, “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them...” So, which is it, Jesus? Shine or hide? Let others see our good deeds, or keep them hidden? Well, like most moral choices, we have to think hard about our motives for doing good deeds. Why am I performing this good deed? If it's to let everyone know how wonderfully generous I am, then I'd best keep the deed hidden. That's what's best for the health of my soul. If, however, I'm doing the Good so that others might give God the glory, then I'd best bring the media and shine as brightly as I can. The simple truth is: I could not have done the Good w/o God, so He gets the credit. It might not be immediately apparent why making sure that God gets the credit for my good deeds is essential to my spiritual health. Consider this: everything you have and everything you are is a gift from God. Freely given, freely received. Your spouse, your kids/grandkids, house, job, car, everything. That you are in the first place is a gift. Your talents, your health, your vocation. All gifts. At the end, nothing you have or are belongs to you. Not your body, not your soul. Nothing. It's all God's. And He gave it all to you so that you can use it all to give Him glory. When you use all He gave you to give Him glory, you become a way and means of diffusing His limitless goodness into the world. The more His limitless goodness is diffused, the more His Gospel is heard and answered. If I make my good deeds about me and my pathetic need for applause, then I make my good deeds about my very limited goodness. Sure, the example I set may spark a copy-cat benefactor or two, but all I've done is help another needy ego get an attention-fix. Spiritually speaking, I've lied. I've done the Good and claimed the credit when the Good I've done is not mine to do. It's a false witness. Jesus condemns hypocrisy for this very reason – stealing credit for the Good done while never allowing the Good to change me for the good. So, do the Good and give God the credit. Not b/c He craves glory but b/c doing so highlights a fundamental truth of reality, a truth that brings others to Him – every existing thing is a gift. All of it. You, me, everything is His first. The Good we do can never be anything but secondary. We can either steal the credit, or give credit where credit is due. Only one these options brings us closer to Christ.

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Poetry Writing Exercises

NB. I taught a poetry writing workshop at UD back in the summer of 2011. Some of these exercises may have been borrowed from a workshop text. I can't remember. . .

What does one do in a poetry workshop? 

A couple of HancAquam readers have written to ask what does one do in a creative writing workshop. Well, we spend most of our time reading and critiquing student poems. When we aren't doing that, we read and critique published poems. In this summer's workshop, we are focusing on contemporary poetry published in the U.S. and the U.K. We spend one day a week writing in class using exercise I've cobbled together. Here are a few examples:

Epigraph Exercise

Choose one of the quotations below as your epigraph:

“What do you love better: the ruin or its repair?” – Eric Pankey, “Prayer”

“Repetition is the death of art.” – Robin Green

“Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.” – Plutarch

“Earth, is it not this that you want: to rise/invisibly in us? – Is that not your dream,/to be invisible, one day?” – R.M. Rilke, “Ninth Elegy”
“The woman wants a salad.” --Ange Mlinko, “A Few Leaves of Salted Rocket”

Compose a twelve-line free verse poem that argues against the idea/sentiment presented in the epigraph.

No form of “to be” may be used.

You must include the phrases: “ducks and oranges” and “beats me” in the poem.

Each line MUST be exactly eight syllables.

Junk Drawer Exercise

You are looking for a rubber band.

In your kitchen junk drawer you find the following:

a can opener
a box of staples
a screwdriver
several broken pencils & dried pens
a watch w/o a wrist band
two used tubes of Chapstick
a handful of coins
a bottle of baby aspirin
two Christmas cards from 1983
a plastic spoon
several packets of soy sauce
a couple of crumpled receipts from WalMart
a seed catalog
five keys on New Orleans Saints keyring
a pocket-sized bottle of bug spray

Choose nine of these items and compose a free verse poem consisting of seven couplets.

You need the rubber band to save your life.

Not-guilty Confession Exercise

In a prose poem of no fewer than 75 words, confess to a crime you did not commit. You may not mention your innocence; however, it must be clear that you are innocent.

Give specific details of the crime—details that only the criminal would know.

Include the penalty for the crime and how you intend to deal with it.

You are confessing to your “victim” or the victim's family/friends.

Missing Persons Exercise

Media sources all over the world are reporting that individuals seem to be randomly disappearing.

Not only are these people disappearing physically but memories of them are fading as well.

Choose five of these people and compose a twenty-line elegy for them.

Include enough detail to distinguish them from all the other individuals who have disappeared.

Questions in Heaven Exercise

After a long and happy life as an award-winning poet, you die in your sleep and arrive at the Pearly Gates.

St. Peter greets you with the following request, “You've lived a long and happy life as an award-winning poet. The Angelic Host needs your help. The questionnaire we use for admission into Heaven has become a bit outdated. Would you compose a list of questions for us that tests a soul's grasp of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty?”

St. Peter needs no fewer than eight questions that never mention Truth, Goodness, or Beauty nor do they hint at their true purpose.

The questions may not refer in any way to religious/spiritual concepts or use language that might betray their religious/spiritual nature.

The idea is to ask recently separated souls questions that only indirectly test their humanity.

Antique Store Exercise

While on a road trip to __________ you come across an antique store called Noah's Next Ark.

You stop for a bathroom break and decide to explore the store.

Compose a longish (20+ lines) poem about what you find in the store.

While exploring the store, you discover that you have been killed in an auto accident.

What do the things in the store teach you about the nature of chance?

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He prays for shepherds

11^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Why does Jesus pity the shepherdless sheep? They are – probably – a flock of lost, hungry, sick, and unwashed folks who have been abandoned by the Temple and the Empire, left to wander in spiritual and material poverty, despairing of any hope and lacking any trust in legitimate authority – legal, religious, or otherwise. They follow Jesus around b/c he speaks with an authority that strikes them as authentic, real. He heals. He feeds. And they've witnessed him casting out demons. Word spread. Here's a man who is more than an office, more than a representative of a distant ruler, more than just another voice from the Temple. He might be the Son of God, the Messiah. He might actually be who and what he says he is. And what if he is? What if he is the Messiah? Then, there's hope! There's an end to the hunger, the sickness, the despair. We can trust again. We can trust that God's promises are not locked away safely guarded in a temple vault or hoarded in a Roman barracks. His pity, his compassion will see us through and beyond. Jesus sees lost sheep. And his compassionate response is to give them shepherds.

Jesus appoints the 12 apostles b/c he sees the sheep for what they are. Men and women created in the image and likeness of God, struggling to find their way back to God. Living in the world while not being of the world, they are lost to the powers of darkness and fear, threatened by both material and spiritual forces they do not understand and cannot resist. Rather than giving them a new set of rules or a revised book of policies and procedures, Christ gives them a team of laborers, a college of apostles to shepherd them. Each one sent out to be Christ wherever he lands. These apostles establish a church, an assembly of believers who gather to pray, to baptize, to break bread, heal the wounds of sin, and study the Word for preaching and teaching. As these churches grow, suffer persecution, grow some more, and mature, the apostles are replaced with more apostles. And the sheep come to understand that they too have a ministry. They have a mission rooted in their own death and resurrection in Christ Jesus. They too are priests, prophets, and kings. Because the laborers are few and the harvest is abundant, Jesus prayed for more. More laborers. More help. The apostles and priests cannot do it all. God answers with sheep who themselves become priests, prophets, and kings.

If I asked you how many priests we have in the chapel this morning, you might say four or five. How many prophets? How many kings? If you say none, you'd be wrong. If you are baptized and confirmed (anointed), you are a priest, prophet, and king in the Church. We draw a distinction btw the ministerial priesthood and the baptismal priesthood – a difference in kind not just degree – but the ministries of both are fundamentally the same. Intercede and sacrifice; preach and teach; and bring Christ into the culture for its sanctification. Those of us who are ordained, fulfill our offices in leadership – in persona Christi Capitis. All the baptized and confirmed serve in persona Christi. In the person of Christ, you are baptized and confirmed as priests, prophets, and kings for the the mission and ministry of Christ in the world. You are authorized to act and speak in the person of Christ wherever and whenever you find yourself. You don't have to wait for an ordained priest to pray, to sacrifice, to love, show mercy, or forgive. You are Christ where you are. Yes, we need ordained priests for the valid celebration of the sacraments! But you do not need to be ordained to be a sacrament of love for the world.

For some, this truth is freeing. For others, it's scary. You might prefer that the burden of being Christ in the world fall only on the ordained. That limits your liability for being a good Catholic to Sundays, HDO, the occasional confession; no meat on Fridays during Lent; and a crucifix on the bedroom wall. But – the harvest is abundant and the laborers few. Jesus prayed for help. And he got it. In the form of all the baptized and confirmed! This means that each one of us is charged with being Christ wherever we find ourselves. Not just while kneeling in the pew. But at home, at school, at work, at WalMart, at Whataburger, wherever we are. We are charged with gathering the harvest and caring for the sheep. The lost, the hungry, the sick, all of the Father's creatures who seek to return to Him. We hope, we forgive; we speak the truth in love; we cast out dark spirits and show those afflicted to the Light of Christ. Then we return to the sacraments – intercede and sacrifice, preach and teach, and recharge to go out again and bring Christ to the world, proclaiming, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

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Sermon on the Mount: a fable for sheep?

10th Week OT (M)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great, Irving

Way back when I was a heathen grad student, one of the most damning criticisms of the Christianity that I'd ever heard was that belief in an afterlife dangerously focused the hearts and minds of the poor and oppressed on some promised “pie in the sky,” causing them to meekly accept their poverty and oppression in exchange for a better life after death. So, when my Marxist-feminist professors railed against the economic injustices of capitalism and the subjugation of women under western patriarchy, I knew that traditional Christianity was an accomplice to these crimes against humanity. The Church's promise of paradise was nothing more than a means of keeping po'folks and women in their places here on earth. And there was no better explanation of this scheme than the one found in the Sermon on the Mount. The whole thing reeks of Be Meek, Be Humble, and Be Quiet Right Now and Sometime After Death You Will Be Rewarded for Not Demanding Your Rightful Place at the Table Among Your Betters. Nietzsche was absolutely correct it seemed. Christianity is a slave's religion, a fable for sheep. 

This line of criticism is not easy to dismiss. After all, Jesus says, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. . .” After you have suffered persecution, trial, and death for his name's sake. Why can't our reward in heaven be great for just being who we are, for just being really nice to our neighbors and generous to our friends? It's good to know that the grieving will be comforted and that the clean of heart will see God and that the merciful will be shown mercy. . .but doesn't all that just mean that we'll be treated with the same dignity as everyone else? And, I'm sorry, but knowing that the prophets who came before us were persecuted is not all that reassuring. Misery might love company but given the misery involved, I'd like to request a different sort of company. Given the choice, I'd prefer to hang out with the Beautiful People: the wealthy, the well-educated, the talented; those who understand that being blessed is all about enjoying those blessings while they are still alive to enjoy them. All this talk of being blessed after I'm dead makes me wonder why anyone would buy into this system called “Christianity.” Why can't my reward be great right now? Why do I have to wait until I get to heaven, assuming I get to heaven and assuming such a place exists in the first place?

Our lives here on earth aren't just about living in the spirit, living for heaven as if we have nothing to do while we're “down here.” If living in ignorance of the spiritual world is dangerous, so is living as if the material world doesn't matter. We are rational animals who thrive in both the spiritual and the material worlds. As a philosophy, only Christianity offers a way of living fully as both material beings and spiritual beings. The Sermon on the Mount isn't a sermon about suffering now so that we might rejoice later on. Jesus is teaching the crowd that suffering is a hard fact of our material lives. Living in the spirit of charity with our eyes firmly focused on the hope of the resurrection isn't an escape from suffering, it's the only way to make sense of an otherwise senseless burden. Our suffering now has a end, a divine purpose. And that purpose is to encourage us to bring encouragement to others who suffer. Misery loves company, true. But the company of Christ who suffered for us can redeem misery in this life. Redeem it, not end it. B/c suffering is how we choose to experience and use our pain, our grief, our persecution. If we choose to suffer well for others, we are redeemed and those who suffer are comforted. So, yes, blessed are the poor, the grieving, and the merciful. For their reward is great both in heaven and here on earth.

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Mysteries take time

Corpus Christi

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

You may not think of yourself as an empiricist. But if you were raised in the US or anywhere in the industrial West in the 20^th century, then you have been trained to more or less trust the evidence of your senses as a guide to the truth. What you see, hear, taste, feel, and smell is real. What about all that stuff we think is real but can't see, hear, taste, etc? Stuff like souls, grace, God? That sort of thing? Well, being well-trained empiricists – and Catholics – we take a side-step into symbolism, into metaphor. Or, more recently, into psychology. Our non-Catholic peers are more and more abandoning even symbolism and metaphor for a newer religion, scientism – the false belief that material science is not only the best method for finding the truth but the only method. We can't go down that rabbit-hole b/c we know that there is no contradiction btw our faith in God and understanding His creation scientifically. Symbols, metaphors, sacramentals give us a way to hold onto the real that our senses cannot fully grasp. We can see, hear, taste with our imagination and at the same time understand that we do not create the real. That which exists beyond our senses and cannot be fully grasped by the imagination is Mystery. And Mystery takes time to reveal itself.

The Church – mother and teacher – gives us the Solemnity of Corpus Christi as a provocation, a gentle poke and shake to wake us up and dare us (again) to live and thrive in the Mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ. We've got the vocabulary down pat. Christ's Body and Blood are sacramentally present in the consecrated bread and wine. Body, blood, soul, and divinity. All there. The Real Presence. Not physically present. But substantially real under the accidents (the appearances) of bread and wine. Our senses tell us we are eating bread and drinking wine. That's true. Our imaginations conjure the deeper truth that we are eating his flesh and drinking his blood. That's true too. But both of these truths are only parts of the Whole Truth. Necessary but not sufficient parts of the Biggest Possible Truth. That Truth – the BPT – is that in the eating and drinking of his Body and Blood, we are becoming Christ. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. . .the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” We heard the words. All in English. We know the definitions of all those words. The grammar is correct. Our imaginations can conjure the right images and put together a picture of what all this might mean. But the fullness of the Mystery reveals itself over time.

What happens “over time”? The words don't change. The truth doesn't change. Bread is always bread. Wine is always wine. The Body and Blood of Christ is eternal, unchanging and timeless. Over time, we change. We mature. We suffer loss. Victory. We give and receive forgiveness. We fall and get up. And fall again and again. We turn around and start over. If we are faithful, we see our trust in God confirmed and strengthened. Our hope is polished and shines more brightly. We love more fiercely and seek and find ways to show others the Way. Over time, we come to enjoy sacrifice; we find that sacre facere – to make holy – is less a deliberated choice and more of a virtue, a good habit of just living day-to-day. Then, one day, we are smacked by a truth that is so real, so concrete that we can feel it in our bones – I'm willing to die for my friends. I'm willing to die to bear witness to all the Good God has done for me. I am nothing if not Christ – Christ crucified, born again after death, and raised to the right hand of the Father. I am him whom I eat and drink. The Body and Blood of Christ. Body, blood, soul, and divinity.

And even here, at the moment of revelation, the fullness of the Mystery is just beyond sight. There's more, always more. Filled to the brim and spilling over, God expands our limits and dares us allow Him to burn away every fear, every worry, every hesitation we may harbor. Anything that can blind, deafen, or deaden our desire to know and love Him perfectly. If we will learn, He will teach our senses to perceive with our imagination. And He will teach our imagination to see and hear and taste the Really Real of His abiding presence in all that has ever been, is right now, and will ever be. Right here, right now, Christ says to us, each one of us, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. . .the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” You and I live b/c he gave his life for us. When you are ready to give yours, the Mystery of his Body and Blood begins.

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You must die for love

9^th Week OT (Th)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Thinking about your daily life as a follower of Christ, what is one thing you have the most difficulty doing consistently? Personal prayer? Forgiving your neighbor? Suffering well? If you are like me, you will say “loving God, self, and neighbor.” It takes a lot of rile me up, and I don't hold grudges. Over the years, I've developed a Stoical philosophical approach to disaster, disease, and the general chaos of the world. Living with other friars has also helped me better handle the temptations of self-righteous anger and cynicism. As the brothers here can tell you, I'm still working on it! Practice makes perfect. But the one area where I struggle mightily is caritas, love. And the reason for this is pretty simple: I am not yet a saint. Thanks be to God, Jesus provides everything necessary for the Saint Becoming Process. He orders each one of us, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. . .You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Then, dying on the Cross, he shows us how it's done.

“You SHALL love the Lord, your God. . .You SHALL love your neighbor as yourself.” Singular, second-person imperative. An order. Not a suggestion, or a plea – a command. And a strange command at that. Usually, we think of commands in connection with actions. March! Sit! Wear a mask! Pay taxes! So, when our Lord commands us to love, what is he commanding us to do? How are we supposed to act? I mean, isn't love a feeling, an emotion? Isn't it a passion that either just is or isn't there? I love my family and friends, but I know them well. How do I love a stranger? An enemy? How do I love God Who is not a being but Being Itself? How do I love Being Itself??? Jesus commands us, You shall love. You shall always and everywhere prefer and will the highest possible Good for God, neighbor, and self. . .in that order. You obey the Lord's command by converting, by turning your intellect to the Truth and your will to the Good, always and everywhere doing the greatest possible Good Thing for God, neighbor, and self. This is the foundation for the Law of Moses and the whole of the Law of Love. This is how you and I become saints: sacrificial love, a love expressed perfectly from the Cross.

What keeps us from that Cross? That is, what or who in this world tempts you away from loving perfectly? More often than not it is the Self who lures us away. My needs. My feelings. My hurt. My wants. My reputation. My fears. My prejudices. My work. Me as an idol whom I worship b/c I am – obviously – the source and summit of My universe, right? Not quite. You and I belong to Christ. We are his Body in this world. His hands and feet and eyes and ears and voice. We are his flesh and bone sent to do his work and accomplish his mission. Anything that stands in the way, anyone who stands in the way, stands in the way of our Lord's command to love perfectly, sacrificially. If you yourself stand in your own way, then there is nothing to do but turn around and come back to Christ. Turn around and run back to the only one who can give you what you need to be perfected in love. Health, wealth, reputation, career, stuff – all of these crumble to dust when you do. Sic transit gloria mundi! Thus passes the glory of the world! You and I must die in this world before we can live forever in the next.

And this is why “you shall love” is so difficult to obey. I have to die to love you perfectly. To will the greatest possible love for God, for you, and myself, I must die in sacrifice. I must sacre facere – make holy – everything I am and have. All of my thoughts; all of my words; all of my deeds; my heart, my mind, my soul, my body. All of it must be oriented toward understanding the Truth and willing the Good so that I become a living sacrifice, another Christ on the Cross for the salvation of the world. If this sounds narcissistic – I must become another Christ! – remember you and I were baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, living, dying, and rising with him. You and I were strengthened by the Holy Spirit. At every Mass we celebrate, you and I make of ourselves an offering to the Father through Christ. You and I eat his flesh and drink his blood, becoming him whom we eat and drink. The only way any of us can ever come close to loving perfectly in this life is to lose ourselves in the life and death of Christ, allowing him to love perfectly through us, hoping, that on that Last Day, standing before the Just Judge, it is his face he sees in ours. Wear the face of Christ now. so that you might wear it forever.

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Don't be a circus monkey

St. Boniface

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

The handout is titled, “The Temptations of a Preacher.” It's an expose on how the Devil lures the preacher away from his anointed task – to preach the Good News in its entirety w/o making any dishonest adjustments or compromises. I pass the handout around to the seminarians, and the discussion begins. After nearly two hours of dissecting the topic, we conclude that all of the Devil's temptations can be lumped into One Big Temptation for the preacher: You Can Be a Star! You can have a fan base. Lots of applause. Influence across media platforms – even a YouTube channel! All you have to do is: never say anything of substance; never preach the hard stuff; always scratch itchy ears; affirm prejudices – cultural, political, economic – ; and put on a good show. The preacher's job once this temptation is yielded to is simple – you're an over-educated circus monkey wearing an anachronistic costume. Contrast that image with this one: “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Circus monkeys don't die for their groupies.

St. Boniface, not a circus monkey but rather an eighth-century English Benedictine bishop, martyr, and missionary to Germany, writes to a friend, “Let us be neither dogs that do not bark nor silent on-lookers nor paid servants who run away before the wolf…Let us preach the whole of God’s plan…in season and out of season.” No dishonest adjustments. No compromises. Boniface barked at the wolves. And he died a martyr for refusing to run away. Same with Paul. We read in Acts that Paul was seized by the Jewish leaders and almost killed because “[he] preached the need to repent and turn to God, and to do works giving evidence of repentance.” Paul preaches the truth; he barks at the wolves. He too dies a martyr for not running away. Faced with the temptation to be an Ecclesial Star and the promise of martyrdom for preaching the truth, do you bark and die or whimper and slink away? Lest you lay folks are too comfortable, I'll add: these temptations aren't limited to pulpit preachers. All the baptized are charged with preaching the Good News, veritas in caritate. The truth in love. You can be a circus monkey getting laughs, or you can be a dog for the Lord. You can dance for applause, or bark at the wolves. Guess which one takes the Devil's coin.

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Feed my sheep. . .follow me

St. Philip Neri

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

Peter is distressed. And rightly so. He denied Christ three times before the crucifixion. Now, Christ is asking him to repudiate his denials and declare his love. Three times. Peter must've been squirming mightily during this interrogation! Imagine having to look the person you betrayed in the eyes and say, “Yes, I love you.” Yes, despite the fact that I abandoned you when you needed me most, yes, I love you. The guilt, the shame, the humiliation. And then add to all that what appears to be the other person's reluctance to take your admission of love at face value. So, yeah, Peter is distressed. But notice how Jesus ignores Peter's anxiety. How he just gently glides over Peter's squirming and flop sweat. Rather than rub his nose in his failure, Jesus commands Peter to take care of the little ones who follow the Way. Feed my sheep. He doesn't say, “Wallow in your misery” or “Wring your hands and wail with regret.” He says, “Feed my sheep.” Because you love me, Peter, provide for my people. Lead them. Watch over them. Keep the wolves at bay. There's no time for self-pity or regret. Follow me.

If we can confess to loving Christ, then we follow him. Not just a vague emotional attachment to his overall philosophy of life but a real following-after, a walking-behind to go where he went. We'll have our moments of retreat into the desert. Our time to enjoy a meal with friends. We'll be there when others need prayerful healing. We'll also be betrayed, abandoned, and crucified. All because we confessed our love for Christ. All because we found joy in the Spirit. We will be tempted to see the evils done to us as punishments for sin. Consequences of some long ago denial of God. Remember Peter. Remember Christ ignoring his distress and commanding him, “Feed my sheep. Follow me.” No attempt to soothe or reassure. No placating bumper sticker aphorisms. Or hand-holding. Just: “Feed my sheep. Follow me.” When Peter followed Christ to his own Cross in Rome, did he recall his denials in the Garden, or his confessions of love on the shore of Tiberias' sea? Well, he died a martyr's death for love. So, he died a martyr in joy.

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Do not receive the world's rejection

6^th Sunday of Easter

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

This Ole English Professor would like to note that there are a whole lotta verbs working in the readings this morning. Proclaiming, hearing, crying out, curing, rejoicing, receiving, praising, giving, suffering, loving, keeping, remaining, asking, seeing, loving, revealing. And my favorite verb of them all: being. It warms my Grammatical Heart to hear so many nouns verbing and so many direct objects receiving the action! Yes, there's a lot going on. As it should be. Jesus is leaving the disciples. He's not abandoning them. He makes that clear. But he is leaving. You can almost feel the anxiety vibrating off the disciples at this news. The near panic at being left to fend for themselves – w/o a teacher, w/o a shepherd, w/o direction. It must've been brutal for them. And, no doubt, Jesus feels their terror. So, he promises, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth...I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” That Spirit comes to us at Pentecost. And remains with us still – proclaiming, loving, revealing, fortifying, and just being.

One of the first lessons I teach seminarians in my preaching classes is to always present the Gospel using present-tense, active verbs. This is harder than you might think. We're reading about events that happened centuries ago. Jesus healed the sick. He died and rose again. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit. Historically accurate, yes. But not exactly thrilling. Using past-tense verbs leaves us the distinct impression that these events are one and done. Over. And in some sense that's true. Jesus doesn't die more than once. Nor does he resend the Spirit when necessary. But thinking about our life in Christ as an historical account, something that happened long ago and far away, can lead us to believe that we are merely Readers About the Faith, latecomers to the glories of the Gospel who are charged with occasionally dusting off the text and wondering what it was like “back then.” Philip urges us: “Always be ready to give an explanation...for your hope.” Does our explanation go something like this: “Well, you see, there's this story where this guy Jesus teaches about love and then dies on a cross and now we get together once a week to read about his life.” Is that our hope? A story? A weekly get-together to catch up on life? 'Cause if it is, we're the biggest dupes to draw breath since Adam and Eve trusted a talking snake!

Fortunately, we're not dupes. We're not dupes b/c we do not believe that our faith is based on a book, a story. We have a book – lots of books – and we have a story, a powerful, life-giving story. But books and stories don't create great saints, faithful-to-the-end martyrs, or hope-filled witnesses to the truth. Jesus promises his disciples that they will not be left orphaned. He promises to send them the Spirit of Truth. Not a trendy ghost who will show them how to negotiate with the powers of the world for approval. Not a spirit of individual empowerment or a spirit of collectivist subservience. Not a spirit of cowardice, compromise, or corruption. But a Spirit of Truth. An abiding, enduring, on-going Spirit of Love who clarifies, sharpens, and focuses our witness in and to a world determined to commit suicide just for the fun of it...and take us with it. Jesus tells his disciples that the world cannot and will not accept this Spirit. Why? Because the world “neither sees nor knows him.” The world neither sees nor knows this Spirit b/c it does not know the Father. In fact, the world has rejected the Father. It has rejected His fatherhood, His guidance, His discipline, His creation, and so, it must also reject His children. The Spirit of Truth teaches us even now: do not receive the world's rejection!

That's right. Do not receive the world's rejection. Don't worry about opposition. Don't worry about embarrassment or ridicule or persecution. What's the saying? You know you're over the target when you start getting flak. Amen. Bring to bear the faith's most devastating weapon against the Spirit of the Age: veritas in caritate. Truth in love. A 500 gigaton bomb, 500 billion tons of truth dropped in love. Not a “once upon a time” fairy-tale told in the past-tense. Not a philosophical system or theological method. Not a bureaucratic institution with policies and procedures. And certainly not a global process-meeting with predetermined outcomes. Truth in love. The universal solvent for all the world's illusions, lies, and death-dealing vices. Do not receive the world's rejection. It's what the world wants. It needs you and me to abandon it to its suicidal/homicidal tendencies. That's not what the Spirit of Truth demands of us. Whoever observes my commandments loves me. [So] I give you a new commandment: love one another. Present-tense, imperative, active voice. Love one another. 

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